Project Consortium

Masaryk University (MU) is a public, non-profit educational and research organisation, founded in 1919 as the second Czech university in Brno, South Moravian Region. At present it comprises ten faculties and 2 university institutes, more than 30 000 students and 4300 staff, making it the second largest university in the Czech Republic. The long term aim of Masaryk University is to profile itself as a research university with an internationally respected research programme, distinct profile and research results visible in European context, a university actively involved in international collaboration both on European and global level.

  The Central Europena Institute of Technology (CEITEC) is a young and dynamic interdisciplinary research centre that is focused on life sciences, advanced materials, and nanotechnologies. Since its foundation in 2011, the centre has quickly grown to a considerable size and has made an immediate impact. The research centre attracts top EU grants and has managed to develop its reputation as a centre of excellence. CEITEC performs among the best science institutes in the Czech Republic, and is above average on the European level. To maintain the high international standards of quality in research, CEITEC is regularly evaluated by the International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB). CEITEC comprises 7 research programmes (Advanced Nanotechnologies and Microtechnologies, Advanced Materials, structural Biology, Genomics and Proteomics of Plant Systems, Molecular Medicine, Brain and Mind Research, Molecular Veterinary Medicine) with a total of 63 research groups and 11 core facilities.

 The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) was founded in 1974 and now is the Europe’s flagship laboratory for the life sciences. EMBL is an inter-governmental non-profit basic research institute funded by public research monies from 25 member states and 2 associate members. EMBL is international, innovative and interdisciplinary. Research at EMBL is conducted by more than 80 independent groups covering the spectrum of molecular biology from the molecule to the organism, as well as computational biology, bioinformatics and systems biology. The cornerstones of EMBL’s mission are to integrate European life science research by performing basic research in molecular biology; training scientists and students at all levels; offering vital services to scientists in the member states; developing new instruments and methods and actively engage in technology transfer.

EMBL drives research, innovation and progress through technology development and transfer. Its tradition of delivering outstanding conferences, courses, and workshops to participants from all over the world is matched by few. EMBL’s Core Facilities contribute significantly to these training courses and workshops.

The Genomics Core Facility (GeneCore), headed by Vladimir Benes, is EMBL's genomics service centre equipped with state-of-the-art technologies for functional genomics analyses. It provides its services to a broad range of users ranging from small research groups to international consortia.

The University of Edinburgh (UEDIN) is the leading research university in Scotland. Almost all members of staff at the university are research active. On a European level, traditionally the University has been very successful in participating in European Framework Programmes. It is the University's stated aim that it wishes as far as possible to conduct its research and development activities on a trans-national basis. The pooling of research expertise, equipment and database resources contributes to major advances in science, technology and medicine worldwide.

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is one of the largest and most diverse universities in Germany with around 32,000 students from over 120 nations. JGU unites almost all academic disciplines under one roof, including the Mainz University Medical Center, the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts, the Mainz School of Music, and the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies in Germersheim. About 4,400 academics, among them 570 professors, teach and conduct research in over 100 institutes and clinics. With 75 fields of study and more than 270 degree courses, JGU offers an extraordinarily broad range of courses.

As the only German university of its size, nearly all of the institutions of JGU are located on one single campus near the city center, which is also home to four partner institutes involved in top-level non-university research: the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPI-C), the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology (HI-TRON), and the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB). The campus of the University Medical Center is only about a kilometer away and both Mainz Leibniz Association institutions – the Institute of European History (IEG) and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum (RGZM) – are located slightly further away in the inner city.

 Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) is a newly established non-profit research centre of excellence that is located in a new cutting-edge research building on the campus of the University of Mainz, Germany. IMB conducts high-impact research in developmental biology, epigenetics, DNA repair and related biomedical areas. Epigenetics and the study of gene regulation are integrated with thematically related fields such as developmental biology and DNA repair, and questions are approached from a very wide angle: from biochemistry, molecular and cell biology to organismic and systems biology. The highly international make-up of group leaders at IMB means the institute has a number of well-established international collaborations and publications.

IMB provides all the conditions needed to carry out very successful research projects while also providing the training that is needed to become a leader in the respective field. All members of the research groups have access to cutting-edge equipment and expert support through IMB Core Facilities.

IMB organises the recruitment of PhD students through a competitive international graduate school that offers a unique possibility to attract talented students. In addition, undergraduate students can be recruited through the international summer school.

International PhD Programme on Gene Regulation, Epigenetics & Genome Stability (IPP): The IPP was established in November 2011 and is organised by IMB. There are currently 52 Group Leaders participating in the IPP, including all PIs at IMB as well as 40 PIs across the associated institutes at Mainz University (JGU) and its University Medical Centre (UMC). All of these research groups focus on topics related to gene regulation, epigenetics or genome stability and perform internationally competitive research in their fields. As such, the IPP has a cross-institutional and interdisciplinary faculty that serves two important purposes. First, it networks PIs and students across Mainz, facilitating collaborations.